GT7 W12: Chaparral 2J '70

"Oh, and I drove the 2J around the (Sardegna) grind race. Fucking hell it's mega. I can 't wait to review it. Might be COTY material." — me to Obelisk, 05/06/2023 10:59 PM.

Well, here we are.

Ob Chappie by RMedia_Obelisk Style Link

I've always loathed high–downforce cars. Most of it is because I'm terrible at driving them, yes, but I genuinely feel that downforce is the stupidest thing to exist in motorsport; not only does dirty air produce snooze fests of races, but it also necessitates that the cars hug the ground as closely as possible to fully capitalise on ground effects, which in turn necessitates that the suspension be set up to be unforgivingly stiff, making the cars nervous wrecks at low to mid speed, especially around circuits paved with less obsessive perfectionism than a photoshopped supermodel's face. I've never liked how I've just had to blindly trust a car at breakneck speeds just to make a turn, instead of slowly feeling and working my way up to speed. And if the car doesn't turn enough, is it because I'm going too slow, or too fast?

All that nonsense, just so the cars go faster in select turns in clean air? That's not racing; that's just hollow spectacle. I know I'm in the microscopic minority when I say this, but I genuinely think that downforce is a blight onto motorsport. As long as the car isn't taking off on the straight, that's enough downforce for me. But maybe I feel that way because modern motorsports are doing downforce all wrong; something that Jim Hall and Hap Sharp realised as soon as their fifth applied aerodynamics racing prototype back in 1970, when they switched from sticking upside–down airplane wings on their 2H racecar to a sleek, almost featureless box of a car in the 2J.

Unless you're a cat, it's what's in that box that properly excites; a 7.6 Litre Naturally Aspirated V8 engine producing 683HP and capable to revving to an unusually high 8,000rpm, mated to a lightning quick 3 speed stick shift automatic gearbox (don't... ask me about that), good for an as–tested top speed of 356km/h (221mph)... but nobody cares about that. Rather, it's the 247cc, two–cylinder Rockwell JLO snowmobile engine that gets all the attention and earns the nicknaming rights to the "sucker car"—it powers a pair of 17–inch fans that suck air from below the car and jettisons them out the rear, creating an area of low pressure underneath the car to cause the atmospheric air around the car to naturally push the car down into the ground, not to mention generating just a tad bit of forward thrust for good measure. All told, the 2J could reportedly generate a literal tonne of downforce with its fans, or 2,200lbs for our genius American friends. For some context, a modern day, cutting edge track toy, the Elemental RP1, can only generate that same amount at 150mph. The 2J could make that downforce at any speed, even at a standstill, regardless of whether or not it's following any other car (which is not very likely at all).

Oh, and the mass of the 2J? A mere 821kg (1,810lbs). Lighter even than the Kei car we tested for Week 2.

Style edited from Soap-Box Derby 2J by SubieDude731

All these jaw dropping facts and figures, and I haven't even told you what the car felt like in practice! In modern Formula cars and even DTM and GT500 machines without ABS, the driver has to gradually ease off the brakes as the car slows down and the downforce washes off the car to prevent wheel lockup when braking at low speeds, resulting in a sharply waning deceleration performance in conjunction with the drag generating wings and splitters. In the 2J, because the downforce is entirely independent of the speed of the car, the entirety of the brake pedal can be used without worry to slow the car to a dead stop the dry, and the tyres won't as much squeak, providing strong, sustained, and constant deceleration all the way to the turn–in of a corner with its large ventilated discs, allowing drivers to brake for corners later than common sense would suggest, even for a car that barely tips the scales. Because of its always–on downforce, the 2J will utterly destroy even modern Racing Medium slicks equipped Group 1 machinery in low speed corners, while itself wearing 50 year old Firestone Racing Hard tyres. In the mid speed sections, it matched, or even slightly bettered, the corner exit speeds of my 2008 Epson NSX GT500, with the 2J finally losing out to the echelons of modern day performance somewhere around the 220km/h (137mph) mark in my estimation, where the downforce level of modern day prototypes finally overtakes the Can–Am Cleaner. In other words, it takes a track with many high speed sweepers and a tyre advantage for a modern LMP or a VGT convert to be able to fight the 2J on somewhat equal pace!

But, while they can match pace with the 2J under very select scenarios, those modern machines can do absolutely nothing to even palely mimic the 2J's tyre longevity; thanks to its extremely lightweight package, and possibly due to its immense downforce minimising tyre scrubbing, the 2J's tyre life is simply u n e t h i c a l ! Running the 2J and a McLaren Ultimate VGT Gr.1 both on Racing Hard tyres with horrific power detunes to fit under the 800PP limit of the lucrative Sardegna WTC800 event, the McVGT from the future was about a quarter way through its rear right tyre at the end of the 15 laps with no tyre change, and was already starting to feel skittish to drive.

The 2J? Um, well...

The wear was so minimal, it genuinely made me think that the developers forgot to code in tyre degradation for the 2J for a good portion of the race! That's probably a good thing, because I have no idea how long it'd take a pit crew to change the blocked off rear tyres on this fridge. While the 2J sucks fuel like its going out of fashion, its nearly nonexistent tyre wear means that the car just keeps getting faster and faster as the event wears on and the car gets even lighter with less fuel!

And that's not all! Because the 2J always has its one tonne downforce at any speed, it's affected much less by the rain, which sharply slashes the speed, and therefore downforce, of cars which rely on passing air to generate grip. The spray the 2J would kick up and jettison out the rear into the faces of its competitors sadly doesn't seem to be simulated, but the 2J was ultra composed and surefooted even in the wettest of conditions with full wet tyres, especially for something capable of the speeds it does, allowing drivers to carry what would qualify as reckless speeds by any daredevil into corners. In the braking zones, I could use about than 3/4 of the brake pedal without locking the wheels, meaning it can even reign back in all that speed in the twisties! If you thought the 2J was fast in the dry, wait till some rainclouds appear over the track!

Easy Car of the Year material, right?

Unfortunately, when it came time for us to run the 2J full tilt in our weekly lobbies, I came to absolutely loathe the damn thing. You see, all the praise I had heaped on the car prior were a result of slow driving, either cautiously feeling out the grip levels in the rain, or conserving fuel with a hefty detune. When ran at full tilt, the 2J becomes a moody, psychotic, and unpredictable murderer in a box.

The Chevrolet V8, despite being NA, is heinously peaky, making peak power just a thousand revs below its rev limit of 8,000rpm, but it doesn't even have to do 7,000rpm to break traction on the rear, in spite of its long, 190km/h (118mph) capable first gear. In practice, I notice a horrific spike in power somewhere around the 6,300rpm range when the engine finally "wakes up", making this NA unit kick the rear with almost as much ferocity as a torturously turbocharged tiny engine, with said spike being a prominent problem in 2 of its 3 forward gears. Drivers of the 2J then, will have to become very, very familiar with the very specific note of the engine raising to 6,3, and actively lift off the throttle mid turn even before traction has been broken, because when this car goes, it goes in an instant without any warning whatsoever, worse so than modern cars with conventional aero.

You know how, with experience, you quickly learn to avoid turning too much while going over a rumble strip in the corner exit, or right at the treshold of locking up the front tyres when braking without ABS? You learn that because it's very quickly evident that asking a tyre stressed to its limits to do something more simply snaps the car and sends it spearing off into the barriers. Here's the thing, though: in a conventional racecar, it's the driver who's stressing the tyres, gradually leaning into them when they need that specific tyre to do the most work. It's the driver who presses the brakes, steers the car into a rumble strip, and knowingly brings the car to into danger. In the 2J however, all four tyres are constantly stressed by the always–on downforce. While that means that all four tyres are doing their most work at all times, what that also means is that it takes only the tiniest, almost inconspicuous things to push the 2J over the knife edge it's always teetering over, and the driver doesn't get to feel the car up to its limits, gradually lean into the tyres, or approach the danger themselves; the dangers approach the car instead, and when that happens, the constantly stressed tyres give up with all the immediacy and catastrophe of a blatantly stupid maneuver, such as giving full throttle on steering lock on a rumble strip, even if the offence was something inconspicuous, like a slight tap against a barrier or another car.

One moment, the car has awesome grip, and a slight inconvenience later, the car is upside down, inside out, and on fire in a ditch with some Armco souvenirs. There are no "small incidents" with the 2J, what with it constantly being on the knife edge of grip and the speeds it does; every incident is an ugly, undoubtedly fatal wreck at triple digit mph speeds, because the only way a driver gets to learn what upsets a 2J and what to avoid doing in one is to have at least one big crash with any of the many possible list of offenders: the power spike in the engine. Wandering under braking. Old habits of trying to carry much more speed into a high speed sweeper, thinking more speed equals more downforce. The car naturally understeering. Turning the car too much. A bumpy public road. Kerbs. Contact with another car or a barrier. I cannot even begin to fathom how one would discover its handling limit in the real world in a safe manner, let alone stay near said limits consistently for an entire race. If you have enough virtual lives to live and learn through enough of these wrecks, you'll perhaps be able to come to some sort of understanding with the 2J and make a reasonable attempt to tame it to extract its still bountiful potential. But that of course, requires very painful unlearning and relearning of how to drive. You don't simply hop into a 2J with the experience of having driven other cars and drive it; you 2J a 2J in a very specific 2J–ish way the 2J wants you to 2J it. And I can't help but to wonder if it's worth the pain.

If you've stayed with my long and incoherent ramblings up to this point, then hopefully you'll also pardon me if I become a little dramatic here: driving a 2J is like willfully sustaining emotional trauma. No matter how hard I tried to placate it and take every precaution, it spits me out almost every other corner, and it's distressing. It sows a very big, fast sprouting seed of paranoia into me. When I hopped into my McVGT Gr.1 for a comparison test, the whole session suddenly became fun; I could suddenly drive again. I could compete. I didn't feel like my car wanted to kill me for daring to share a space with it. I ended up 2nd and 3rd in the 2 races I brought my McVGT to race, and I didn't make a single legitimate overtake of any 2J on–track; they all fell off the wayside in ugly accidents one after another. When I braked and turned, the car didn't spit me off. When I lost grip, the car was easy to retrieve. If the McVGT was a person instead of a car, they'd probably be wondering why I'm moved to tears simply by the fact that they didn't elect to stab me in the stomach and spit in my face when we shook hands. It was a trustworthy car, but I had a very difficult time trusting it because of all my previous experiences with a 2J. That race at Laguna Seca was less me racing the 2Js around me and more a race for me to trust a modern racing car again in time before Baron and his bathtub took the chequered flag in the desert.

In other words, learning how to drive a 2J fast almost makes me forget how to drive a normal car properly, and I don't much see the point in that.

And that brings me to a very weird realisation for the conclusion to this long winded post. On paper, the 2J makes all the sense in the world. Fans generating downforce makes all the sense in the world. I would love to see what a modern car in the 2J's spirit would look and drive like, how much of the 2J's problems can be addressed with modern technology, and how much of it is simply inherent to the design. But the fact is, we live in a flawed, illogical world, where the nonsensical is the norm. To survive in it, I've had to spend all my life trying to get accustomed to that nonsense, and roll with it as a matter of course. The 2J then, appears alien and incomprehensible to me, despite it making logical sense. It's like saying formal wear with blazers, suits, ties, and uncomfortable dress shoes make no sense, especially in a hot and humid country like Singapore, but if I showed up to work one day and my boss was in a T shirt, shorts, and sandals, I'd still be thrown for a loop. I can't help but to imagine an alternate reality where the inverse is true; where downforce generating fans are the norm and fixed, speed reliant aero devices were the novelty. Would I hate the McVGT and complain about it as much, while praising a modern Chaparral?

It's impossible to have an apples to apples comparison for the 2J, which makes it impossible to be fair to the 2J when deciding whether its a good car or not. Hell, we've had to reach some 50 years into the future for competent competition to it, and even those had to wear Medium tyres to compete. because it's its own thing, with its own unique strengths and weaknesses that's almost impossible to hold to other cars, and even then, it feels like it's several universes away from anything I could compare against it. Then again, maybe racecars back then weren't meant to be driven and held at their absolute limits or reviewed by sim rig pretenders. I get the feeling that, back then, racecars were more a test of a driver's balls than the cars' technical excellence. The 2J was never set up to face equal competition; it's set up to blow everything out of the water with ease, and thus never had to be driven flat out. Put it up against something else that can fight back, or even against copies of itself, and the Chaparral very quickly becomes roadkill. For every mind blowing strength it has over other cars, it has an equally crippling weakness to cancel it out. It's either qualifying 2 seconds ahead of contemporary cars, or it's broken down in the sidelines. It's either gripping with all the tenacity of a pack of hyenas, or it's lying by the roadside as roadkill. It's either the most frugal car on the track with tyres, or it's drinking like it's just been dumped. It's either the most technologically advanced racing car in the game, or it's a shitbox saddled with a 3 speed auto and overcooked pasta springs. This is a car that could easily clinch both the Beater of the Year and Car of the Year awards simultaneously, and I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

Whatever awards and races it wins or doesn't win, though, the 2J is unequivocal proof to me that downforce is a blight on motorsports, even when done right.

GT7 W11: Nissan Silvia spec-R Aero (S15) '02

I've spent a whole week flogging the S15 Nissan Silvia around virtual racetracks, and for the first time in the 3 years I've played pretend reviewer, I really can't seem to make up my mind on how I feel about a car.

On the surface of it, what's not to love about an S15? It looks good with its low, compact body, packs modest power with an iconic engine, barely tips the scales, comes relatively cheap, and is a mechanically simple 2 door FR sports coupé; quite possibly the last ever from Nissan, who can't seem to stop making big, heavy computers on wheels nowadays. With such an excellent base to build upon, the S15 was a prominent sight in many disciplines of motorsports, from D1GP, GT300, and even in Time Attacks today, giving it a strong aftermarket support for tuners. Hell, by sheer coincidence, SPD, Vic, and I brought S15s from three seperate racing games to our weekly meets, which just goes to show how culturally significant the S15 is. Really, it seems to tick all the boxes for a classic JDM sports car from the nineties, doesn't it?

My problem with the S15 is that it seemingly has all the finest ingredients to making a perfect sports car, but instead of carefully preparing said ingredients and cooking them, Nissan have seemingly just lumped all the raw ingredients into a chassis without a second thought and sold it as a complete product, which ticks me off because I see the vast possibilities of those now wasted ingredients.

The suspension setup of the S15, for example, is soft enough to sleep on. This of course means that the body of the S15 moves and wallows around a lot under hard driving, which, when coupled with a rather abysmal 56/44 F/R weight distribution, means that even minute steering inputs with full throttle or brakes will invite out the unladen rear end of the spec-R Aero to a bloody dance macabre. Maybe it's the Super HICAS rear steer system, manufacturer option on the manual spec-R models, that's messing with the car and causing it to be this tail happy, or maybe it's Gran Turismo doing a poor job of reproducing its behavior in the game. According to the game's settings sheet though, the S15 doesn't come with a 4WS system, nor can a 4WS controller be bought for it, so maybe the car is just set up that bad from the factory, I'm not entirely sure. Whatever the cause, the car is very much a "one thing at a time" car—no steering when you're braking, no brakes or throttle when you're turning, and when you're at the corner exit... well, good luck, have fun, and try not to die. Get it even slightly wrong, and the car simply falls sideways on the driver, as softly sprung cars don't much like ham fisted emergency corrective maneuvers. This car intrinsically challenges drivers to be smooth and measured with their inputs, and that holds doubly true in the torrential downpour if you're unlucky enough to be caught in one, even with a coupé model of the S15.

The heart of the spec-R on the other hand, a turbocharged version of Nissan's venerable SR20 2 litre Inline 4 engine, is a real treat! It's peak power and torque of 246HP (183kW) and 274.5N⋅m (202.5lbf⋅ft), both at 6,400rpm, may not sound like much, but there are two caveats to those modest figures—the first is that the spec-R Aero trim weighs in at a mere 1,240kg (2,734lbs), making those meek looking figures more than adequate for the car. The second caveat is that the turbocharged engine now has a very steady plateau of torque from what appears to me to be around 3,200rpm, allowing drivers to lug the car out of wet corners or simply to avoid time loss by shaving off a shift. I'm sure @Nismonath5 can give you a clearer, real life perspective of the torque of an SR20. But, while I'm on the topic of the engine, the turbocharged version of that malleable Inline 4 engine has its fuel cut set at 7,700rpm, which I opine you'll want to be near as often as possible on a track. The problem is that the tachometer turns into a fully red wall from 7,100 to 9,000rpm, making the human ear a much better indicator as to when to shift more than the tachometer of the car. Again, it feels like the car has all the greatest of raw ingredients to be something truly special, but they've just been mindlessly heaped together with no consideration for balance, cohesion, or how those parts will work together!

In practice, though, I find it incredibly hard to get mad at the S15 in spite of its rather moody tendencies. Well, okay, "moody" isn't the right word; the car feels completely at ease even when grip has been broken, giving its driver ample buildup and warning each and every time before it lets go. And when it does let go, it acts as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The steering remains light as ever. The car as a whole retains its... "flickability", for the lack of a better word. There's torque in the engine wherever to hold and adjust the slide, or you could ease off the throttle and let the car regain its grip. The car doesn't protest in the slightest either way. Instead of forcing drivers to drive it "correctly", it gives the driver all the ingredients and allows them to be naughty or nice with them.

Given enough time to internalise the S15's tendencies, the car becomes an intensely engaging drive, as I as the driver can never really relax in it or take anything for granted. Sharp and sudden tail happiness possibly due to unwelcome rear steering aside, there isn't much else on the S15 muddling up the driving experience, resulting in a very mechanical, pure, and intuitive drive; it's just a lightweight body propped up on four springs and four wheels. That is to say, it has two of the most important ingredients in the sports car recipe in abundance: lightness and simplicity. There's no race suspension to keep the body motion in check or to optimally distribute load. There are no overly grippy tyres that let go in an instant, nor are they staggered front to rear to help you keep the car out of the walls. It isn't even offered with the option of traction control, meaning the only electronic nanny zapping control away from the driver is the wholly appreciated ABS. Whatever happens from there on out, is your call as a driver, and your fault if you wrap it around a tree. It has an absolutely bewitching and seemingly impossible mix of threatening and ease of use. You almost go into a "zone" of sorts when you harmonise with the car. And that I think, is the mark of a driver's car.

But just how much of a driver's car is it? I thought some outside perspective might help, and so I brought along the Honda S2000 AP1 and a Mazda RX-8 Spirit R for comparison, the former because it's widely regarded as one of the best driving machines ever produced, and the latter because someone insulted my family on MY thread, and I have to... make excuses for why the RX-8 can't compete.

I mean, come on, the RX-8 has less power, more mass, more doors, and no turbo. Of course it's going to be slower. But the part that surprised me the most is where the RX-8 is slower than the S15: at long straightaways. The fact that it can more than hang with a pure sports car in the twisty bits I think is more than commendable for a 4 seater. The S2000 is also slightly slower than the S15 when both are bone stock... because the S2000 comes default with Comfort Soft tyres, in contrast to the S15's Sport Hards. Match compounds on both, and the S2000 will unabashedly whoop the S15 around any track you bring them to.

Bringing two comparison cars instead of just one to compare against the Car of the Week just helped me solidify my opinion that the S15 is way too soft and tail happy for a sports car. While the S15 is asking me every corner to baby and pamper it because it's so delicate, the other two cars instead are almost yelling at me every corner, every upshift, "LET'S F—ING GOOOOOO!" I as a driver feel that I have to actively hold the S15 back for fear of getting into trouble with it, whereas I'm in perfect aggressive harmony with the other two cars, and can thus push them harder, more of the time. That explains why cars with inferior numbers on the spec sheets can tango with the spec-R, not to mention making them much more fun than the S15, and I almost don't think that's a subjective statement. Both the comparison cars are also mechanically simple drives that will teach drivers how to handle a sports car at and beyond their limits, so the only niches I can find for the S15 are that it's a lot easier to break into a drift, and it's much cheaper than both the S2000 and RX-8 without GT7's stupid inflation. Hell, I took an S14 K's to a time trail after our weekly meets, and I think even that drives better than the top trim S15, even if it was slower.

The S15 Silvia feels like a basket of the finest, freshest ingredients imaginable, all just lumped together with the expectation that someone will wash them, peel them, chop them, cook them, or what have you. I don't know what goes on behind the scenes of a meal; I'm Singaporean. We're way too stressed out by our fast paced lives to learn any skill that doesn't promise prospective financial profits, including cooking. The kitchens in our newer homes are just spiteful formalities that would struggle to fit a dining table, let alone the appliances around it. We just want ready made products that work right out of their packaging, and if they don't work immediately, we get angry and whine about it in online reviews. To the angry, poor, and impatient Singaporean in me, the S15 is a shockingly bad car, akin to a restaurant serving me uncooked food. It doesn't have that instant gratification, disposable feel that the rest of my life revolves around. I needed to take time out of my fast paced life to really learn its ins and outs, what it likes and doesn't like, and then adjust my driving to really suit it. It's a very, very painful reminder that there ought to be more to life than what I currently have. The pretend racing driver side of me, who endlessly loves and praises cars of the S15's ilk, wants so badly for me to love and adore the S15. And I am so, so torn on it as a result.

In conclusion, I can see that the S15 is a very good car, one that I'm very glad exists. But do I like it? I don't know. I like it sometimes and I hate it sometimes. I hake it. It's a sleater. Let's just say I respect it, but I wouldn't go near it if I had comparable alternatives.

GT7 W9: Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution V GSR '98

Infuriatingly, none of the Lancer Evolutions in Gran Turismo 7 have their pièce de résistance, their Active Yaw Controller, adjustable via any means in this game. Back in Gran Turismo Sport, the default AYC setting puts the trick system at its mildest setting, making it barely noticeable, which seems to be the case in GT7 as well. A Lan Evo without AYC feels almost like Burger King without their burgers, Disneyland without Mickey, or Monza without the oval. Is there anything left to it that other cars don't have or can't do better?

Produced for just about a year from January 1998 to January 1999, the Evo V will certainly be argued by many to be among the best of its prestigious litter of monster machines born and bred to tango in the fires of competition. While that sounds like typical marketing talk from a car manufacturer, perhaps no other car embodies that philosophy better than the Lan Evo and Imp STis; with their rivalry on the rally stages reaching their zenith in the late nineties, both companies had to produce largely similar road going versions of the cars they wished to field in battle. In other words, where other cars are produced and sold to make money first and foremost, the Evo V was put in showrooms just so Mitsubishi can beat Subaru black and blue and make them see stars.

And it shows, doesn't it? While the cessation of Group A homologation needs made most later Evos look more and more like their base Lancer counterparts, there is no mistaking the Evo V whatsoever for the base model Lancer, with its fenders flared wide enough to be the star of its own robot wars manga, not to mention that towering adjustable wing, glaring fog lights, and, of course, AYC. Slip into the factory Recaros of an Evo V, and you might get more rally car than you could've ever reasonably expected from a road car.

Try to drive this thing normally, and you'll find nothing but understeer that pushes harder than the healthy 414.6N⋅m (305.8lbf⋅ft) of the turbocharged 4G63 engine in the front of the car. That is not to say however, that the Evo doesn't want to turn; you just have to know how to make it turn, and that's done with the pedals almost as much as the steering wheel itself. Don't worry, the car will teach you how it wants to be driven... whether you want to learn or not. Full braking in this thankfully ABS equipped car is almost like mistakenly jumping into a competition pool as a kid who can't swim; you keep expecting the front end to stop sinking at any moment, but the front springs feel like a bottomless spiral that can absorb any amount of weight you want to put over them, and every gram of weight you sink into them means one gram of stability less over the rears, making the front engined, all wheel drive Evo V almost as eager to be provoked into a slide as an air–cooled 911. From there, drop as many cogs as need be on the ultra close ratio five speed manual gearbox to keep the rather peaky turbo 4 cylinder happy, and then unleash all of its 306HP (228kW) to keep all four wheels spinning and smoking to carry the car through to the exit of the turn. That is to say, this is a car that only wants to turn when it loses its grip on the road, which is when it becomes much more controllable than when it was stuck onto the road. This thing was set up to go sideways, even on paved asphalt. The moment you let up on being a boor and let the car regain its grip, it's right back to understeer city!

But of course, conventional wisdom would tell anyone willing to listen that grip driving is undoubtedly faster than drifting, and that holds doubly true for a wide, paved racetrack with an abundance of grip and width. With springs that soft and endlessly weight absorbent, the Evo V asks of its driver more commitment than most marriage vows when braking for a corner on a racetrack—under trail braking, mid corner steering corrections in this car will quickly unsettle the very softly sprung car, sending it into a snappy fishtailing session that only death can put an end to, and so you as the partner of the Evo have to pick a line, pick it precisely, and then stick with it in sickness and health, even if it leads you to cleanly and embarrassingly missing an apex, or face first into the inside barrier. Smoothly guiding the hypersensitive and eagerly upset car to gradually carve a precise line towards a deep apex is almost like trying to keep your kid from learning swear words or trying to keep clean a daily driver; it's only a matter of time before you give up and let nature take its course, and instead of feeling bad about it, there's just a sense of relief washing over you as you realise you were fighting the inevitable, and you just do your best to cope with whatever comes next.

Rather, in spite of what its hulked up specs might suggest, the Evo V is much better suited for slower, tighter tracks, like Gymkhanas and Touges. The power isn't there to make the car go ultra fast in a straight line; this thing suffocates past 175km/h (109mph) where fourth gear wanes off. The entire drivetrain is set up the way it is to ensure that you can break grip on all 4 of its Comfort Soft tyres with a boot full of throttle. You aren't supposed to carefully trail brake it into an apex on a racetrack, you're supposed to just give it full brake, full steering lock into a tight turn, let the car slide, and then full throttle with full turbo boost to keep that slide going. It's an all or nothing car, one that gives up on you the moment you doubt it and hesitate, or fail to internalise its tendencies and harmonise with its very specific driving style. But, while I was fighting and experimenting endlessly during both weekly sessions simply trying to find something that will satiate the Evo and coax some speed out of it, the car effortlessly clicked so intensely at the narrow and bumpy Nordschleife that I suddenly could drive the Evo almost without thinking about anything at all, and simply let instinct take over. Oh, what's that? You want to break out your rear? Yeah, sure, whatever, the track goes over there anyway. Hey, uh... there was a pretty nasty bump and rumble strip back there, wasn't there? You sure didn't tell me much about it, or cared that much. Eh, if you don't care, why should I? Just do your thing.

I have to admit, I'm no rally driver, even within the make believe realm of Gran Turismo. I've tried to carefully nurse it around a racetrack with conventional knowledge, and I've tried sliding it around like a hooligan, and yet I can't keep up with any of my peers in our weekly meets. Rick and Vic were steadily gapping me at Streets of Willow even as they fought among themselves, and RX8 smoked me around GVS in a 1v1 race by about a second per lap. There's just something about this car that I don't get, and so you should probably take my opinion this week with even more salt than usual. For what it's worth, though, I did thoroughly enjoy my time with the Evo V this week, especially when I wasn't chasing numbers or competitors.

Seeing 1998 through my jaded 2023 spectacles, I can't help but to admire how... stupid, the Evo V is, in an absurdly good way. It's raw, involving, unadulterated, and unapologetic. Using 2023 logic, if a car manufacturer wanted to sell a car using racing pedigree as a marketing angle, they'd make the car look more racecar than the actual racecar, only to hold it back with all the vehemence of a thousand nannies that no racing series would possibly allow, and then bake impossible to overcome understeer into the suspension just to seal their asses against lawsuits. Not so with the Evo V. Not with any Evo. The car not only looked like a rally car, it drove like a rally car, to my limited knowledge of them, and it serves as a powerful reminder to be careful what you wish for. I can't help but to imagine some rich poser kid buying one of these cars to show off if it were on sale in the modern day, only to fully depress the brake pedal while yanking the steering wheel hard to one side in a panic situation, almost certainly resulting in a bigger crash. Cars simply aren't built like that anymore, and I think that's a crying shame. While I can't master it, I came away from this week with a deep humbling and even deeper respect the Evos of this time period. I daresay of all the beloved 90s darlings that came from Japan in that deeply magical era, nothing else feels as legitimate and in your face as an Evo or an Imp, and there's just such a rowdy, unobtanium charm to that.

And all that is even before we get to tweaking the adjustable AYC on these cars.